


Shut Up and Jam (With Me)

by antikytheranComplicator



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Fluff, Humanstuck, it's a reference to charles barkley shut up and jam gaiden, shamelessly punny title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 06:38:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6144814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antikytheranComplicator/pseuds/antikytheranComplicator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John meets a cute girl at a school dance, and decides dancing isn't really his thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shut Up and Jam (With Me)

John had no idea how he’d let himself be dragged into this.

On the surface, he knew he had to go to that school dance to support Dave’s first “major” DJing gig. The stoic-as-ever coolkid had never admitted it, but he was really proud that he’d landed a job as DJ for the night, and he wanted everything to be perfect. So John took a break from his normally very busy weekends of rewatching Nic Cage movies and decided to show up.

But from the moment he walked in the building, it was clear to John that he was out of his element. All the people dancing in pairs to some kind of weird swing/dubstep mashup Dave had concocted just seemed too active and intense for anyone John would normally want to hang out with. And he could forget about asking someone to dance with him-- he knew that every time he thought about doing it he would just freeze up for a moment. In his mind, he had already pretty much written off the night.

“So, you’re alone at this miserable excuse for a dance party, too? It’s good to know that there was someone out there failing at being social at anywhere near the level that I have. I should’ve never let that Strider shithead drag me, you, or any other poor, innocent people with no social skills and actually reasonable music taste into this clusterfuck.”

John turned to his side and felt a strange mix of annoyance and relief when he found Karkat Vantas standing next to him.

“Oh, hey, Karkat! Yeah, I haven’t found anyone to dance with for now, but I know I’m going to go up and ask someone! Any minute now, I’m going to do it! I’m just waiting for the right moment…”

“Sure, Egbert! You’re definitely brave enough to go up and ask anyone you want to. Since you’re  _ so sure _ of yourself, why don’t you ask that girl over there!” Karkat pointed to a blonde girl with a pink dress that had some kind of cat emblem sewn onto it.

“Oh… uh… no! Not her! I’m going to wait for someone else! A better opportunity! Besides, she’s busy talking to Rose.”

Karkat just stared at him indignantly for a moment.

“Okay, you’re right… I can’t do it and I don’t want to do it. I’m a big scared doofus. But what makes you any better than me! You’ve been complaining about being alone this whole time!”

The scruffy-haired, sullen boy sighed. “I was really hoping I wasn’t going to have to do this to you, John. You’re going to thank me for all this bullshit later… or try to kill me. And if it’s the second one, I want you to remember that this was all Rose’s idea.”

John could barely let out a “Huh?” before Karkat waved to Rose and somehow found the strength within him to push John in Rose’s direction. Simultaneously, Rose pushed the girl in the cat dress towards John. Though she put up a much greater fight than John did with Karkat, Rose managed to force her over towards John to the point that the two were pretty much touching.

As Rose’s friend let out a tiny, adorably awkward smile and flushed deeply, Rose just looked pleased with herself. “Wow, John, Roxy, I’m proud that you both were finally able to take initiative in this kind of situation. And here I was thinking that you two would just stand around awkwardly the entire dance.”

“Uh… O-okay! Sure, Rose…” John’s face had turned bright red as he was barely able to stammer out any coherent words. Did she and Karkat really have to push him into some poor girl to get him to dance with someone? And why did she have to be so cute?

“Well, we’ll go leave you two alone, since you certainly seem eager to talk to each other.” Rose’s smirk couldn’t possibly get any more smug as she and Karkat waved them goodbye, leaving John to fully focus his attention on the girl in front of him.

There was a long silence. Even though Dave’s music was loudly blaring, it still felt quiet to John.

“Well… Hi there!” Out of nowhere, Rose’s cousin’s face had perked up, letting out an absolutely beaming smile, the kind that ought to be studied by epidemiologists for being so amazingly contagious. “Aren’t ya gonna say something, or are you even dorkier than Rosie said you’d be?”

“Rose  _ told _ you about me? Does this go even deeper than all the obvious scheme-y stuff Karkat and Rose were doing? And you were being just as dorky as I was until you just started talking.”

Roxy blushed a little. “Ah-- yeeeah, I think she probably didn’t want that little number to slip or anything, but knowing her she probably expected me to. That smug drama queen’s probably hiding under the bleachers with Kanaya and staring at us in between bouts of hot makeouts.”

John laughed, and some of the tension in his face lightened. “Knowing those two, they probably have some elaborate goth picnic blanket spread out under those bleachers for some romantic ‘let’s-fail-to-set-up-our-friends tea party.’ I bet they dragged Karkat under there too, for good measure!”

“Wait, you mean this whole setup didn’t work? Cause I can totes go away if this whole thing is bothering you or somethin’.”

“No, not like that! I just mean, we haven’t really been doing anything, you know? We’re not exactly romantically dancing halfway around the room.”

”Want to fix that?”

Roxy knew she had won when John’s face went even redder than it had been before. And though John couldn’t bring himself to say it, Roxy took his slight trace of a grin as a “Yes.”

Taking his hands, Roxy led him closer to the center of the dance floor, and slowly started stepping in tune to the music in an attempt to emulate the more skilled dancers on the floor, but a continued lack of response from John led her to shoot him a worried glance.

“Uh, Roxy, I appreciate the offer --really, I know how this looks, but I do-- but I really have no idea how to dance! Dave’s made me try before, and it took all I had to keep him from uploading what he saw to Youtube. I just don’t want to disappoint you --you seem really into this!”

Roxy grinned at him. “But Johnny, that’s the point! We’re not at some fancy ballroom dress with men in billion-dollar tuxes and women in enough perfume to make the whales they get it from barf again or whatever their sitch is-- dancing like this is about having fun and doing whatever you want! So quit yer yapping and just dance for once! I know you’ll do just fine.”

John usually wasn’t on the receiving end of an inspirational speech like that, but he saw that Roxy had this enthusiasm about her that made him want to just lose himself in her and forget about everything else. It was like she  _ sparkled _ in the light of the dance floor, and the way she looked at him with a heart-melting smile full of determined excitement left him with no choice but to give her a hearty, buck-toothed grin and start dancing along with her.

It was the most romantic thing that John had ever done, though he admittedly hadn’t had much experience with romance. An onlooker would have confused it for the climax of a high school romantic comedy akin to the kind that can be found on Karkat’s hard drive... if it weren’t for the fact that John and Roxy were indeed horrible at dancing.

They knew it, too. John kept awkwardly looking around, unable to figure out just how Feferi and Sollux were moving with the smooth grace of a cuttlefish swimming or a bee landing on a flower. Roxy stuttered every couple of steps, and eventually her fit of enthusiasm devolved into awkwardly laughing with John about how bad their dancing was. The whole situation turned into a joke to them, and though it was funny at first, it soon wore off, and the pair stopped dancing and let go of each other.

There was around thirty seconds of awkward silence, which to them felt like thirty minutes.

“Well, uh,” John spoke, finally breaking the silence. “That was fun and all, Roxy, but I’m gonna go check on Dave for a bit and see how he’s doing with all that DJing stuff. It was nice meeting you--”

“Hey!” Roxy grabbed John’s hand again as he turned away, and she blushed furiously when he turned back to face her. “Okay, yeah, we’re both reeeally shitty dancers. We ain’t gettin’ around that. But whatevs if dancing’s not our thing! I know a lil’ outta-the way spot for us to have some  _ real _ fun, if ya know what I mean.”

John’s eyes nearly fell out of his sockets, and his face went even redder than Roxy could have imagined making it.

Roxy burst out laughing. “Not  _ that _ kinda fun, you dork! I mean something that won’t get us expelled if we get caught-- well, probs not, at least. Look, you know that one tech teacher? Black n’ yellow striped tie?”

John’s face turned back to a more normal skin tone. “Y-yeah, I know him, that’s Mr. Captor! I’m in his web design class, actually. What about him?”

“Ya ever hear anything about this ‘secret gaming closet’ of his?”

“He made a joke about that on the first day of school, but I didn’t think it was real or anything. You seem like you know how half the stuff that comes out of that guy’s weirdly bifurcated mouth doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, that old man’s yapper wasn’t spittin’ out bullshit this time! And he’s gotta closet in his room full of the Holy Grail of bored students, the El Dorado for teachers tryin’ ta get away from those fuckin’ teenagers, the Mecca of nostalgia… an arcade cabinet of  _ NBA Jam _ .”

John scratched his head. “You mean that old basketball game? The one with ‘He’s on fire!’ and all those other really meme-y quotes?

“That’s the one, Johnny! A night of ‘90s ballers and infinite overused memes awaits us, just beyond the doors of a classroom I know how to sneak into. Let’s get the hell outta here!”

And before he could realize that Roxy was willing to ditch the party for an old arcade game, she tugged on his hand and pulled him away, running away from the dance floor.

Roxy didn’t let go of John’s hand until she reached an out-of-the way door in Mr. Captor’s computer lab, in front of which she reached into her purse to pull out a lockpick. Upon seeing John’s nervous look, she responded, “It’s gonna be fine, John! I used ta sneak in here pretty much every day at lunch with Dirky. We never came close to getting caught, and ‘sides, I bet Mr. C wouldn’t notice even if he was six feet away from us. Ya ever wonder what that guy smokes?”

John let out one of his signature nervous laughs. “Well… if you say so… I trust your judgement, Roxy! Okay, I trust that Rose trusts your judgement, but she wouldn’t set me up with someone who’d actually get me in serious trouble. Knowing her, you might even actually be sane on the inside!”

Roxy giggled as she fiddled some more with the lock pick. “Well, if your definition of sanity has my Cthulhu-worshippin’ cousin in it, I think you and I’ll get along just fine…. Aha!” 

The lock clicked, opening the closet to reveal a ready-to-play arcade setup of NBA Jam. John didn’t want to know how Roxy had found out about it, but he had to admit the old machine actually did look intriguing. Covered in a fine layer of dust, the cabinet had already been turned on when Roxy opened the door, but the music had been turned off in order to conceal its presence.

Roxy looked at it with absolute wonder. “The sight of this ol’ babe gets me every time. How ya doin’ girl? Still holdin’ up after all this time?”

John smiled at her, legitimately impressed by her accomplishment. “Well… we’re here! I’ll be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure you were actually telling the truth, but wow! A real NBA Jam cabinet, in our school! This is a real life-changer for me, Roxy!”

The burglar girl grinned and blushed a little. “Well, just ya wait until ya play it! That’s the real experience of a lifetime. Now c’mon, lemme show ya how to unlock Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan! They don’t want ya ta know they’re in this game, but this haxxor girl here’s gonna stomp all over any copyright law ya can think of. So let’s get to it!”

And with that, an hour flew by faster than Scottie Pippin could run across the pixelated basketball court. Roxy kicked John’s ass nearly every round, naturally, even when she gave herself the handicap of having to control both her team’s players at once. But John was smiling almost as happily as he would at the end of Con Air, and when at the end of one round John’s hand slipped from the buttons to Roxy’s hands, he never once thought about letting go.

Behind the bleachers, Rose and Kanaya gave each other a distinctly smug look of approval that would make any aspiring flighty broads envious.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! all constructive criticism is welcome.


End file.
